Parenting methods to avoid when parenting an adopted child

Parent are very often frustrated by the difficulties that they're children present to them and they rely on strategies that most people rely on. And for typical kids some of the strategies that people do are effective, but for traumatized kids who've been brought into a family later in life the normal kinds of interventions are not helpful. So we encourage families to not do things in anger, even though that's sometimes difficult given the severity of what the kids do. We encourage them not to isolate them meaning don't send them to their rooms because they really need time in instead of time out. Grounding is probably not productive in a family when you have an adolescent and you're keeping them home for X numbers of weeks because engenders more anger, and so there's more time to be having these angry inter-changes. Corporal punishment is not corrective and in fact that's the question we often ask people, “What have you been doing? Has it been corrective?” And we most often hear, “No, this isn't corrective.” And we then say, “Well, if it's not corrective then let's switch to something else because what you're doing is not being productive, and if it's not being productive you're really losing this if you can see this as a battle. You're losing the battle because you do this, this, and this, and 20 minutes later the same behavior occurs.” So we ask people to make a shift, to diminish the amount of anger they express and to look at more things like natural and logical consequences such as if you had a 15-year-old and you live in a cold part of the country, and they don't zip up their coat or they don't wear a coat when they go to the school bus, the consequence is they're going to get cold and maybe the next day they'll wear their coat without having to go over and over again, “Wear your coat, zip your coat up” so they can learn what they do, if they don't do their homework then the school has a consequence. So, we really get parents to give up a lot of what they think they have control of when they really don't have control and what we hope them to find is when they give up control over the things that they're really not in control of that they will actually have more control over the things that are really important to them and to the child.

Gregory Keck, PhD

Founder & Director, Attachment & Bonding Center of Ohio

Gregory C. Keck, Ph.D., is the founder and director of the Attachment & Bonding Center of Ohio. He is an internationally known psychologist and trainer who addresses the issues of trauma, adoption, and post-adoption challenges. He and his staff provide attachment therapy for adoptive families whose children have experienced serious early childhood maltreatment prior to adoption. In 2012, he received the National Association of Social Workers State of Ohio Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the parent of two sons who were adopted in adolescence.

Parent are very often frustrated by the difficulties that they're children present to them and they rely on strategies that most people rely on. And for typical kids some of the strategies that people do are effective, but for traumatized kids who've been brought into a family later in life the normal kinds of interventions are not helpful. So we encourage families to not do things in anger, even though that's sometimes difficult given the severity of what the kids do. We encourage them not to isolate them meaning don't send them to their rooms because they really need time in instead of time out. Grounding is probably not productive in a family when you have an adolescent and you're keeping them home for X numbers of weeks because engenders more anger, and so there's more time to be having these angry inter-changes. Corporal punishment is not corrective and in fact that's the question we often ask people, “What have you been doing? Has it been corrective?” And we most often hear, “No, this isn't corrective.” And we then say, “Well, if it's not corrective then let's switch to something else because what you're doing is not being productive, and if it's not being productive you're really losing this if you can see this as a battle. You're losing the battle because you do this, this, and this, and 20 minutes later the same behavior occurs.” So we ask people to make a shift, to diminish the amount of anger they express and to look at more things like natural and logical consequences such as if you had a 15-year-old and you live in a cold part of the country, and they don't zip up their coat or they don't wear a coat when they go to the school bus, the consequence is they're going to get cold and maybe the next day they'll wear their coat without having to go over and over again, “Wear your coat, zip your coat up” so they can learn what they do, if they don't do their homework then the school has a consequence. So, we really get parents to give up a lot of what they think they have control of when they really don't have control and what we hope them to find is when they give up control over the things that they're really not in control of that they will actually have more control over the things that are really important to them and to the child.